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Overall Summary
The Silence of the Lambs is a novel by American author Thomas Harris. It’s about an FBI agent who teams up with Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychopathic killer and cannibal, to track down another serial killer called Buffalo Bill. Although it seems like an odd pairing at first, the two work together to solve the case and stop Buffalo Bill from killing again. But as they get closer to finding him, Clarice Starling gets pulled into Lecter’s dark world of manipulation and deceit as he plots his escape from prison while still helping her out on their quest for justice.
The movie begins with Clarice Starling, a trainee FBI agent, being pulled from her training at Quantico. She is sent to Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane by Jack Crawford, who believes that Hannibal Lecter might be able to help them in their search for “Buffalo Bill” (a serial killer). Lecter initially seems polite but quickly becomes impatient when Starling tries to analyze him. He accuses her of dissecting him and rebuffs her. However, he later asks Starling back after she has bodily fluid thrown on her by another inmate. He tells her that Buffalo Bill is linked to one of his old patients and offers to help profile Buffalo Bill if he can be transferred out of the hospital away from Chilton (the pompous head doctor).
The case becomes more urgent when Buffalo Bill kidnaps a US Senator’s daughter, Catherine Martin. Crawford authorizes Starling to agree to Lecter’s deal, not intending to follow through on the prison transfer once Bill is captured. Lecter is savvy and refuses the deal, instead demanding a quid pro quo from Starling. He will provide clues about Buffalo Bill, and she has to give him personal information. She tells Lecter about her father being killed by someone in her childhood. Chilton secretly records this information and reveals it was fake information given by Dr. Lecter himself during his face-to-face interview with Sen. Martin at Memphis Tennessee after his escape from custody where he taunts Catherine’s mother Sen. Martin and gives fake details centering around the name “Louis Friend” which actually means iron sulfide or fool’s gold which leads Clarice Starling into finding out that all of it was just an elaborate ruse orchestrated by Hannibal Lecter as part of their ongoing game between each other while also learning that she had been tricked into giving up some very private memories of hers including one particular memory involving lambs being slaughtered on a relative’s farm back home for what Hannibal referred to as “a little girl” who still suffers nightmares related to that event even though many years have passed since then because she wants so badly for them (her nightmares) to go away if only for good but now realizes just how badly off track she had gotten especially in regards when dealing with Dr Eliott Lector based upon how things turned out later on resulting in his eventual escape from captivity much like what happened previously throughout several previous occasions before over time thanks mainly due primarily towards certain circumstances beyond both of their control such as various factors playing against them plus others along with other reasons too numerous too mention here within said passage above.
Lecter made notes and Starling was able to find out that Bill knew his first victim personally. She traveled to the victim’s hometown and found that Bill was originally a tailor, attempting to make a suit out of human skin. Crawford discovered who he really was: Jame Gumb, an unsuccessful applicant for sex-change surgery. This drove him insane, so he started killing people. However, as Crawford’s team entered the house in Illinois where Gumb stayed before escaping, Starling traced him back to Ohio under another name and found his hideout with Catherine alive but trapped down there somewhere. Using night-vision goggles on her gun, she pursued Gumb through dark rooms until she heard his revolver cocking behind her; when she turned around quickly enough on instinct (and skill), she shot him dead just like that! Later at graduation from the FBI academy (after much hard work), Lecter called Starling up after hearing about it from someone else—he congratulated her and asked if they could not pursue each other anymore because it would be most inconvenient for them both since they’re both very busy people now…but Starling refused this request because she wants Lecter caught again one day instead of being left alone forever more; Lecter then said “Goodbye” before hanging up on her while saying “I’m having an old friend over tonight.” He began following Chilton then as the book ended with little doubt that Lecter will continue stalking Chilton soon enough…
